President Obama rallies for Republican party support of $50 billion transportation proposal

Posted: October 12, 2010 - 12:49am

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday lobbied for Republican support from Capitol Hill for a burst of spending on transportation projects, calling his proposal a jobs creator for the middle class and an overdue investment in the country's foundation.

"There's no reason why we can't do this," Obama said in a brief Rose Garden event. "There's no reason why the world's best infrastructure should lie beyond our borders. This is America. We've always had the best infrastructure ... All we need is the political will."

Obama is proposing a $50 billion plan as an initial step toward a six-year program of transportation programs. It calls for building, fixing or maintaining thousands of miles of roads, rail lines and airport runways, along with installing a new air navigation system to reduce travel delays, and other projects.

The president unveiled the idea over Labor Day. Monday's event amounted to another chance to promote it. The president met privately with governors, mayors, transportation officials and Cabinet secretaries and then stood with some of them before the cameras as he made his case.

The timing also comes as Obama is eager to show action on the sluggish economy just ahead of the Nov. 2 congressional elections, with his party in jeopardy of losing a sizable number of seats in the House and Senate. Obama asked for Republican support, saying infrastructure work typically draws bipartisan support. But such cooperation seems unlikely in the current partisan atmosphere.

The economy continues to dominate public concern. The public sector slashed 159,000 jobs in September, including the largest cuts by local governments in 28 years. Obama said his program would boost employment right away and help make up for what he called years of costly inattention to the country's infrastructure.

"Everywhere else, they're thinking big. They're creating jobs today, but they're also playing to win tomorrow," Obama said of some of the top economic competitors to the United States. "So the bottom line is our shortsightedness has come due. We can no longer afford to sit still."

The administration released a new analysis of Obama's plan that said it would particularly help with middle-class jobs in construction, manufacturing and retail.

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you have to take care of it. Without a reliable, functional infrastructure our industry and economy cannot recover. It's time we joined the rest of the industrialized nations in universal speedy, affordable, and convenient mass transportation and broadband.

I have been concerned about the reports on the condition of the country's infrastructure. Some of the pictures of major bridges make me wonder if I would want to risk driving over them. It seems like these problems have been ignored for way to long. A lot of money wasted on pork to buy votes could have been used to correct the problems that were developing.

Why didn’t Obama make this part of the original “stimulus” package? It would have made a lot more sense. It has been a problem for years so it is not like he didn’t know about it. It is obvious to me he is using this as another voting tactic. The country is so deep in debt that the Republicans will probably say no initially even though they believe it is necessary. In my opinion this is probably what Obama is counting on. He gets credit for having a good idea and the Republicans are shown in a bad light as saying no.

Why didn’t Obama make this part of the original “stimulus” package?
There was a part of the original stimulus package used to fund rebuilding the infrastructure. As a highway worker, I personally worked on a "stimulus" project.

Why did he not put all of the rebuilding in the "stimulus" package? It seems like it makes more sense to do this than piecemeal it. It looks like to me that doing piecemeal would make jobs the created insecure.

Same old answer ---spend more billions of tax dollars, and everything will be just great. Dems have been saying that for decades. I thought B Hussein was the guy with all the innovative new answers for everything. Guess not ---just another moth-eaten Democrat.

The sad part is that the things he wants to build and maintain really are worthy projects ---which we can't afford to do right now because he's blown all the money from the next several generations of taxpayers on his failed stimulus. That money is gone, never to return.

He doesn't need any Republicans to vote for it to get it passed so it's obviously an election-year trap. How can this guy change from 24/7 100% campaign mode and personally call Republicans cheaters one day and then ask them to help him the next??

Use Reconciliation in the Senate and let the House pass it without a single Republican vote and bingo.....you have a $50 billion spending bill to add to the $800+ billion taxpayer money you already spent with no long-term private-sector results and the $1 trillion you'll spend that won't lower medical costs or health insurance premiums.

And there was a ton of money in the $800+ billion stimulus for infrastructure. I'm sure btx knows from memory how much.

What will happen when the bridge you're on/going under crashes? Are you then gonna sue for $50B? Probably, and so will all the traumatized witnesses. After all, look at the payout for the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Let's spend the money NOW, and save the lawsuits.
As for the infrastructure money in the stimulus package, our fair guv rejected most of that, right???

swcowan....He either rejected it or it wasn't offered. I saw interstate work all along I-40 in New Mexico (blue state) when I traveled to Arizona this summer. Was there much work going on in Arizona (red state)? Nope. As soon as we crossed the state line, it was like flipping off a light switch.

And remember that the democrats CAN pass the bill and spend another $50 billion of taxpayer money. Why don't they just do it??